


Best Pleased

by anonymous_sibyl



Category: Ysabel - Guy Gavriel Kay
Genre: Multi, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-24
Updated: 2008-03-24
Packaged: 2017-10-03 06:35:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymous_sibyl/pseuds/anonymous_sibyl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"Choose," they insisted. "Choose and let us begin." But she could not. The vessel would not permit it.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Best Pleased

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://tellitslant.livejournal.com/profile)[**tellitslant**](http://tellitslant.livejournal.com/)'s [First of May Challenge](http://tellitslant.livejournal.com/tag/first+of+may).
> 
> This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/). None of the media or characters written about in my fanfiction belong to me and I make no profit from these works. 

They were anxious to finish the creation, to name her and be named in turn, but always at the beginning before turning toward them she honored the sacrifice. By the time she completed her walk through the fires her host was gone, her particulars faded with her appearance, but enough of what made her unique remained. Be it knowledge personality or soul, it tossed the dice as the wheel turned and so she gave thanks to the sacrifice as she prayed for time beyond counting that this life would change things for them.

"Name us," he called. The other stood silent, but she could feel his need scraping across her bones.

She shooed them away with imperious hand. All would happen as it had happened and nothing of their desires had ever changed that. They came fully formed and intact of personality but she required a living vessel--a woman of this time to host all that she was. If the chance was granted to her she would delay the beginning and seek out the changes to herself, as if by knowing the vessel she could foresee the ways this would end.

All too soon she was more herself than other and thoughts of her host were forgotten. "Cadell," she said, and "Phelan." Warrior and wolf, as they ever were.

"Ysabel" they said in unison, and it began.

Had she not been swept up so quickly in the endless dance she would have noticed a difference in the vessel, a thing that marked her as different from all others who had come before. While her own nature was to choose one and steal what precious few moments they had before the other sought them out and marked this turning's lover for death, the vessel knew nothing of that manner of competition. She had been a lonely child and a lonelier woman still, abandoned by all who once cared for her, and she was greedy for love. It was that above all else that stayed with Ysabel.

"Choose," they insisted. "Choose and let us begin." But she could not. The vessel would not permit it.

The night's cool breeze shivered across her body and stiffened her nipples. What she was thinking, it was foreign to her and to them all but still she desired it. "Find me," she murmured, "catch me," and fleet of foot she ran past the fires, past them, knowing without doubt they would follow.

They did, scuffling with each other at each tree and turn, pushing and shoving until their sweat mingled. Her gifts allowed her to hide and watch. Such a small diversion as this dulled their anger while it stoked their heat. Their battle turned to nothing more than wrestling, boys playing at a game more serious than they knew. Momentarily she saw them again as they once were, unspoiled by the gains and losses of time. Struck by sadness that they perhaps could not see each other in that manner, she was on the verge of halting the challenge when Cadell's laugh rang out and was answered by that of Phelan.

They had never been more than enemies for time out of time because of her choice, but for this one crystalline moment they were comrades in arms. She stepped from the glade of trees and crowned them both with ivy and small forest flowers, ignoring the questions in their eyes and on their lips.

"You are pleasing to me."

"Who?"

"Which of us, lady?"

"Are you not both well pleased with this night?" She peeled her tunic from her shoulder and replaced it with a green tendril plucked from a nearby tree, trembling under the weight of her boldness and their hot stares. "Are you not both well pleased with me?"

"Yes."

"Of course."

And together they said, "always."

"Always," she echoed. "And I with you." She continued her disrobing, replacing worn linen with fresh vines, noting the parts of her body she bared and the effect this had on the men standing confused before her. "And are you not well pleased with each other?"

There, the hostile stares, the clenched fists, and above it all the scent of their mixed sweat on the air. A time to tread carefully or charge forward. Her lovers, her warrior and her wolf, they taught her to charge and the vessel taught her to grasp what was hers with greedy hands.

"Are you not, perhaps, _best_ pleased with each other?" Her own skin was warm and slick beneath her hands and she longed to touch them, to feel their sweat and longing. "Do you not desire the battle and the ending nearly as much as you desire me?"

Cadell's instinct was to deny her and to cover her with words as beautiful as the flowers in her hands, but Phelan, always more direct, merely nodded his bald head, though the twitch of his scar betrayed his anxiety.

"Yes." Her assent was a gasp of desire, yet she turned her back on him, for one alone would not suffice. Not this turn of the Wheel "Who knows you better than we, beloved? Who knows what you crave in your deepest of hearts? Who knows the feeling of your life's blood in their hands?"

Over her head Cadell looked at Phelan who held his gaze unwaveringly. "He has tasted my blood more than you, Ysabel."

"And you his," she whispered. "I would carry your breath and your seed if I could, but your blood will always belong to each other."

Phelan held his arms clenched around his torso and had not moved since she first bared her flesh. Cadell, always the more animated in his passions, bowed his great head and sighed, clearly vexed. "What would you have of me?"

"I would have you obey my wishes, Cadell, and you, Phelan, for I wish to spend this life betwixt you both."

Phelan shook his head as if making a decision then consigning it to the gods as writ and law. "Betwixt, my lady?" He pressed against her back and nudged her into Cadell's broad chest. "Between?"

She shivered when his hand crept beneath the greenery, shivered once more when he took Cadell's fingers in his own and guided them to touch her body.

"Best pleased," she whispered as they explored the bower she had made of her body then drew her down, still between them. "Oh, best pleased."

The night passed swiftly, as nights with lovers do, and she thought when she saw their mouths meet over hers that finally she might have ended their cycle and bought peace for them all.

Morning came, and with it townsfolk searching for her host and finding instead what they thought was a woman in distress. They tore her from them, mistaking her sobs of anguish at being parted from them for the cries of a badly used woman. Her warrior and her wolf, they ran, from her and from each other. She knew they would lose each other in attempting to free her and both would die as they always had. Closing her eyes on the pain she pressed her hand to her womb and gave silent thanks to the sacrifice. The Wheel turns as it will, but there was enough different in this turning to give her hope for the next dance.


End file.
